Angry MPs offered concession on terror Bill

Charles Clarke signalled yesterday that he will offer concessions on his Prevention of Terrorism Bill as MPs and former ministers condemned his plans for detention without trial.

The Home Secretary said he would give "careful consideration" to one of the main demands from critics opposed to the principle of terrorist suspects being locked up at the behest of a politician, not a court.

Opening the debate on the Bill, Mr Clarke dropped what was interpreted as a heavy hint when he was interrupted by his former Cabinet colleague Robin Cook, one of the many Labour MPs who spoke out against the anti-terror legislation.

The Bill will enable the Home Secretary to impose control orders - imposing a variety of restrictions, up to house arrest - on suspects who cannot be convicted of an offence in a conventional court.

As the Bill now stands, the courts will be able to review the orders but only after they have been imposed. Mr Cook called for the initial decision to be taken by a judge instead.

Pointing out that Mr Clarke had already beefed up the role of the courts since his plans were first announced, Mr Cook said: "You would meet the anxieties of many of us on these benches who cannot support the Bill as drafted if you would go to the next logical step and allow the courts to take the decision in the first instance - not to second guess your decision.

"That is the sticking point - that a decision on whether or not to deprive a citizen's liberty should be a judicial one, not a political one."

The Home Secretary said he understood the concerns well. "I can give the House the assurance that I will continue to give careful consideration to this issue," he said.

A concession could be announced before Monday, when the Bill will complete its passage through the Commons.

Mr Clarke told MPs that he wanted to take unprecedented powers because, although terrorists had attacked in Britain before, the threat from al-Qa'eda was "qualitatively different" from anything previously experienced.

He said that their ideology was "entirely destructive"; that, with their willingness to use chemical and biological weapons, they could inflict "cataclysmic" damage: that they were prepared to combine this with suicide tactics; that they were unparalleled in their sophistication; and that they could strike all over the world.

The Home Secretary also insisted that the police and the intelligence services had successfully disrupted a number of terrorist attacks in Britain since 9/11. But he said this should not be used as an argument for not taking further steps to improve security.

But, as he defended his plans, MPs repeatedly highlighted the problem of allowing suspects to be detained by the executive, rather than the judiciary.

Simon Hughes, a Liberal Democrat, said there was no reason why a court should not have to approve a control order, even in an emergency. "First, judges can be called on at any hour of the day, throughout the weekend, at any time. And second, it will be far better for the upholding of the authority of government, of any party, for ministers to have their proposal endorsed by the judiciary, rather than what has happened to many Home Secretaries, which is to have their decision overturned by the courts," he said.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Left-winger, told Mr Clarke he should concentrate on securing convictions in the courts.

"If he has an enormous body of evidence against individuals, and has evidence that they are about to prepare some kind of monstrous attack, then surely it is up to him to bring a prosecution against them in the courts in the normal way," he said.

Many MPs complained about suspects being detained solely on the word of the intelligence services. Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP and Father of the House, said that when Harold Wilson wanted to appoint Judith Hart to the Cabinet in 1968, there were objections from the security services on the grounds that she had a communist background. "It was the wrong Mrs Hart," Mr Dalyell went on. "Subsequently, as the Home Secretary knows, the security services did not distinguish themselves during the miners' strike. And we'll leave weapons of mass destruction out of it."

Mr Dalyell also asked Mr Clarke if he could name any other democracy where people were locked up without trial. Mr Clarke said this happened under the legal systems operating in France, Spain and Italy.

At that point Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney general, accused the minister of "misleading the House".

He was forced to withdraw the phrase by the deputy speaker (the accusation is deemed "unparliamentary"), but Mr Grieve explained that if detention did take place in those countries, it was "in the context of an investigation and prior to trial".

Bob Marshall-Andrews, a Labour Left-winger and a QC, said that although the Bill would give the High Court the power to review control orders, the court could not consider "matters of fact". It would only be able to review decisions on the basis of whether the correct legal procedures had been followed. Mr Clarke said this was not true of the house arrest control order, but that Mr Marshall-Andrews was right about the court's powers on the less serious ones. For the Tories, David Davis said the Opposition was concerned with principle, liberty and the proper process of British justice. "The Home Secretary is taking powers to curb the freedom of British subjects, by order, on suspicion based on limited and possibly doubtful evidence," he said.

Mark Oaten, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, said control orders could be "useful tools" for terrorists.

In a rare move, the two main opposition parties tabled a joint amendment criticising the Bill.

It stated that the Bill was excessive, gave powers to ministers which should be exercised by judges and infringed the liberty of the individual.

During the debate several other Labour MPs, including former cabinet ministers Frank Dobson and Chris Smith, criticised the Bill, which is due to be rushed through the Lords so that it can become law by early next month.

Mr Dobson said he supported, in general, the Government's proposals to introduce control orders.

"However, I cannot and will not support any law which would allow a British citizen to be imprisoned without trial on the say-so of the Home Secretary.

"There's nothing personal about this. The present Home Secretary is a decent man. But no Home Secretary should have the power to deprive a fellow citizen of their liberty without having to lay convincing evidence before a court and letting the court decide."

Mr Dobson, a former health secretary, said terrorists wanted Britain to abandon its "long standing and honourable claim to being a society which rejects arbitrary imprisonment".

House arrest at the direction of the Home Secretary undermined the "timeless rights of British citizens and our standing in the world".